If you've been reading my articles regularly, you know I'm big on using flashcards to study languages. I use a Spaced Repetition System: that's where you put flashcards on the computer and when you review a card, you rate it. Then a program uses your ratings to figure out what cards you should see for optimal learning speed. I use Mnemosyne, which is free, but there are tons of other SRS's out there. I talk about SRS's in more detail at my article, "Dealing With A Neglected SRS Deck".
And, you probably also know I recently started an experiment: I'm no longer listening to music while I'm on the computer. See my article, "Fighting Music Addiction: An Experiment". Stopped cold turkey; this is my fifth day without mp3s or eurodancehits.com or youtube music videos. I intend on writing a general log of the experience when I've been at it a week. For now though, I'm so excited I couldn't help but share about how it's been affecting my Japanese study on Mnemosyne.
Usually, when I do my reviews, I do it while listening to music. These past five days, I've either been doing it quietly, or doing it to nature sounds (like streams, rainforest, etc.) Lo and behold, I'm going through the reviews much faster! With music in the background, it would often take me an hour or more to slice through a hundred scheduled reviews. Especially if I was listening to youtube music videos, since those can't be looped so I'd constantly be switching windows to start a song over or find a new one.
The act of switching windows is also, to me, a temptation. A temptation to go check the news, check forums, check blogs, all stuff which, if I give in to the temptation, adds a good 10 minutes to my review time on Mnemosyne.
Without music in the background, it takes me significantly less time.. maybe 45 minutes to get through a hundred cards. And I seem to do better at them, as well. (Recall, right now I'm in an SRS rut, with over 3000 scheduled reviews, because I put my daily reviews on hold for a whole month while I was in Japan. Consequently, the cards are harder since many of them are long past due for review)
I guess it's all about concentration. When I listen to some music I love, I really get into it. And I guess it steals some of my attention away automatically, not even counting the logistics of switching or manually restarting songs.
I still have to manually loop the nature sounds on youtube (when will youtube get a loop option?!) but the difference is there are 25 minute nature sound videos, whereas most songs are 5 minutes or less. I might have to only do one jump to the youtube window during an entire day's review.
One other thing is, nature sounds are language-neutral. If I'm listening to a song in anything except the target language, it subtracts away from the "language trance" of the target language. See, doing flashcard reviews without English on the cards, it tends to set my mind in a "language trance" where the longer I go without English, the more naturally my mind thinks in the target language. Obviously if I'm listening to English lyrics in the background, it's gonna disrupt that trance.
And finally, although this is rarely a problem these days, I'm less tempted now to go overboard and do more reviews than I intended. I'm currently resolved to review 100 cards a day. Sometimes if I'm listening to some really sweet music, it'll be hard for me to peel myself away from the flashcards, just because they give me an excuse to keep sitting at the computer listening to the music.
But, I don't know whether this should be advice for everyone. To copy what Khatzumoto says, I'm merely recording what works for me, and it can vary for other people. In particular, I don't know whether most people are as music addicted as I was. Music addiction is funny, it's a blessing at the same time as a curse, and I probably would never have even become aware of it if I weren't so gung-ho about improving my productivity and level of consciousness lately. In any case, remember the golden rule of language learning: any method of language learning will work eventually, as long as it involves lots of exposure to the target language.
Here are the other articles on music addiction:
Fighting Music Addiction: An Experiment
Fighting Music Addiction: Week 1
Fighting Music Addiction: Week 2
Fighting Music Addiction: Week 3
Here are some related articles. The more recent ones were composed with no music in the background!
Dealing With A Neglected SRS Deck
A Goldmine Of Engrish
The Language Tradeoff: Learning Languages Through Travel
And, you probably also know I recently started an experiment: I'm no longer listening to music while I'm on the computer. See my article, "Fighting Music Addiction: An Experiment". Stopped cold turkey; this is my fifth day without mp3s or eurodancehits.com or youtube music videos. I intend on writing a general log of the experience when I've been at it a week. For now though, I'm so excited I couldn't help but share about how it's been affecting my Japanese study on Mnemosyne.
Usually, when I do my reviews, I do it while listening to music. These past five days, I've either been doing it quietly, or doing it to nature sounds (like streams, rainforest, etc.) Lo and behold, I'm going through the reviews much faster! With music in the background, it would often take me an hour or more to slice through a hundred scheduled reviews. Especially if I was listening to youtube music videos, since those can't be looped so I'd constantly be switching windows to start a song over or find a new one.
The act of switching windows is also, to me, a temptation. A temptation to go check the news, check forums, check blogs, all stuff which, if I give in to the temptation, adds a good 10 minutes to my review time on Mnemosyne.
Without music in the background, it takes me significantly less time.. maybe 45 minutes to get through a hundred cards. And I seem to do better at them, as well. (Recall, right now I'm in an SRS rut, with over 3000 scheduled reviews, because I put my daily reviews on hold for a whole month while I was in Japan. Consequently, the cards are harder since many of them are long past due for review)
I guess it's all about concentration. When I listen to some music I love, I really get into it. And I guess it steals some of my attention away automatically, not even counting the logistics of switching or manually restarting songs.
I still have to manually loop the nature sounds on youtube (when will youtube get a loop option?!) but the difference is there are 25 minute nature sound videos, whereas most songs are 5 minutes or less. I might have to only do one jump to the youtube window during an entire day's review.
One other thing is, nature sounds are language-neutral. If I'm listening to a song in anything except the target language, it subtracts away from the "language trance" of the target language. See, doing flashcard reviews without English on the cards, it tends to set my mind in a "language trance" where the longer I go without English, the more naturally my mind thinks in the target language. Obviously if I'm listening to English lyrics in the background, it's gonna disrupt that trance.
And finally, although this is rarely a problem these days, I'm less tempted now to go overboard and do more reviews than I intended. I'm currently resolved to review 100 cards a day. Sometimes if I'm listening to some really sweet music, it'll be hard for me to peel myself away from the flashcards, just because they give me an excuse to keep sitting at the computer listening to the music.
But, I don't know whether this should be advice for everyone. To copy what Khatzumoto says, I'm merely recording what works for me, and it can vary for other people. In particular, I don't know whether most people are as music addicted as I was. Music addiction is funny, it's a blessing at the same time as a curse, and I probably would never have even become aware of it if I weren't so gung-ho about improving my productivity and level of consciousness lately. In any case, remember the golden rule of language learning: any method of language learning will work eventually, as long as it involves lots of exposure to the target language.
Here are the other articles on music addiction:
Fighting Music Addiction: An Experiment
Fighting Music Addiction: Week 1
Fighting Music Addiction: Week 2
Fighting Music Addiction: Week 3
Here are some related articles. The more recent ones were composed with no music in the background!
Dealing With A Neglected SRS Deck
A Goldmine Of Engrish
The Language Tradeoff: Learning Languages Through Travel
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4 comments:
I get the same effect while reading. Sometimes I read with ambient music on because it's so relaxing to listen to. However, while reading without ambient music playing, my reading speed and comprehension nearly double.
I'll have to give this a shot when I do my SRS tonight. Sometimes it takes seemingly forever to get through it even when it's the only thing I have opened aside from playing music.
If you need nature sounds, try the Software Aire Freshner
http://www.peterhirschberg.com/mysoftware.html
It generates random continuous nature noises as a way to minimise titinus effects, but it's a hell of a relaxer and great for studying, I highly recommend that you try it. It's free software, by the way.
youtube does have loop. just make a playlist of nature sounds and tell youtube to play it and then do automatically plaiygn
Hello, you have a really nice webpage. The good sw for nature sounds is AtmosphereLite v5.5 (there is also newer version but somhow it does not work on my PC). Kind regards,
Klara
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